Ned chat at 2 p.m. today. Ask, ask, ask!

Might be time to consider the scope of the mandatory physical required before acquiring players. Maybe there really wasn't a way of knowing that Schmidt's shoulder was hamburger, but it sure seems like somebody should have noticed Hendrickson was blind.

And awful, I guess, so maybe just not acquiring awful players is the way to go. Who's to say?

Might be time to consider the scope of the mandatory physical required before acquiring players

The physicals are a joke. It seems pretty obvious that they're a mere formality, and that the team doesn't really want to find any reason not to sign a player by the time they've made it all the way to the physical stage.

Even in those rare occasions when a physical does suggest a player probably shouldn't be signed (e.g. the Red Sox, J.D. Drew, and his shoulder), it seems as if the teams typically sign the player anyway.

I still don't believe that the Dodgers couldn't have detected Schmidt's problems during the physical review process.

Maybe they'll make another Chronicles of Riddick movie about Mark Hendrickson's career.

I'm still upset that Hendrickson got that hit.

3
Because your a doctor who understands how all this works? I guess you don't know anyone yet who had a complete physical and checked out okay only to be dead a few months later.

Reminds me the Scrubs episode I saw last night where every single patient lied to Tuck about their condition so he was unable to help them to the best of his ability.

6
Players have an obvious incentive to hide everything they can from the team doctor. Nothing hurts, nothing bothers them, never felt better in their life, etc.

One would think that teams would want to identify health problems ahead of time so as to avoid signing injured players. But the physical takes place so late in the signing process that there is an incentive to deem the player healthy. Plus, at least in the Dodgers's case, there doesn't seem to be much reason to believe that the medical staff is particularly competent.

As someone who has had laser eye surgery twice I can tell you its a vast improvment and its great not to wear glasses but it is far from perfect. My vision moves around alot (in and out of focus), slower to focus from near to far and halo-ing at night. (These are common side effects of laser surgery-especially for people withmonovision) I'm not saying it won't help Big Bird but I'd be suprised if its THE answer.

BTW, memo to Big Bird: You are a moron if you waited this long to address this problem.

Memo to Dodgers: You are a moron for failing to identify this problem (if it is indeed a real problem). Didn't you ever see the Movie Major League?

8 , corrected

"BTW, memo to Big Bird: You are a millionaire despite having waited this long to address this problem."

How ridiculous is it that contract salary and years are agreed upon before the physical?

If D4P were in charge, the players would be waterboarded during the medical history portion of their physicals.

11
GMs, too. The stupid ones, anyway.

"Did you or did you not offer Matt Kemp to the Giants for Pedro Feliz?"

"I did not."

"Liar!"

(Splash)

8 I had lasik about 4 months ago and have had zero problems and now actually have better than 20/20 vision. It aslo seemed to have worked pretty good for Tiger Woods and others.

With that said, I predict Hendrickson is once again relegated to a long relief role. At least now he'll be able to watch the game better from the pen.

My mom had a bad experience with laser eye surgery. Apparently they didn't properly assess her tear ducts or something - her eyes don't generate enough moisture and the surgery made her extremely sensitive to light.

Sorry, I know it's probably been run into the ground already but I wanted to say hello to Peter Gammons. And also Tom Verducci. Not like they read the comments, but if they do I want them to know that Jason in Canada says hello.

This goes for all the other lurking famous national baseball writers who know about this treasure of a site that Jon has built, Hello!

It's only taken my girlfriend about eight months for her laser eye surgery to work. And she still uses a lot of eyedrops.

15. I was very happy to know that Peter Gammons reads Dodger Thoughts! Imagine if Vin reads it too! Congratulations, Jon!

Link: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

Today you can get a steak for 1 penny in a buy one get one steak for penny sale promotion at Sizzler, dine in only.

I just saw this on the Daily News site and I figured with all the family guys and college guys, they might want to check it out.

And one thing for all the guys in college, do you guys still go to Shakeys and see how many of you can eat for one bunch a lunch buffet? Just asking.

ESPN.com is having a chat at 10:00 a.m. debating who is the best young catcher, Joe Mauer or Russell Martin.

Dear Lurch,
They have these things now that are a cheaper alternative to laser surgery. They're called "contact lenses" I believe. You see an eye doctor, they do some tests, come up with a prescription for you, you order contacts, put them on your eyes, and voila! It's neat. Modern lenses were invented about, oh, 45 years ago, so it's understandable you've never heard of them, or optometrists.

You could've asked Matt Kemp about his color lenses, too. Oh well. Good luck!

Sincerely,
Underdog

(Yes, I know he said he "fought" using them, but just thought maybe he'd forgotten.)

Hi Peter!

Mark Hendrickson would have looked really cool in prescription goggles a la Eric Gagne or Francisco Rodriguez.

22 Have you slept much since Sunday?

19 Interesting that they don't even make McCann an option.

22 Or these!
http://tinyurl.com/2rdvy9

23
Yes, but at weird hours, but I'll likely get straightened out pretty soon. I'm off work on Thursday and that should help a bit.

Don't ask me any complex questions at work today and tomorrow.

24 I thought about that but one of Russell's strengths is his durability. (Their words not mine).

Also he has those darn intangibles.

Hmmm... maybe ole friend Mark didn't see his feet when he took that face plant on the mound in 06.

How is Tomko worth twice as much as Big Bird?

Bob, is there any truth to the rumor you starred in Hostel 3 while in the CR?

28 Tomko was at least serviceable at one point.

27 I guess that's it, because there's no way that McCann is better than Mauer, but at least you can play the intangibles card with Russ.

2

Makes me wonder how the late Joe Kennedy was able to keep pitching with that ticking time bomb of a heart :-(

26 Where can I find books on the Treaty of Peace and Friendship and its influence on the separation of church and state?

Bride of Kavula is a doctor -- of philosophy. She is an astronomer.

When you're looking through a telescope, the atmosphere gets in the way, and there are two ways to correct for that. You can put the telescope in space, and we do -- that's the Hubble. You can also put a set of glasses, sort of, on the telescope, to correct for the atmosphere; you make tiny adjustments to the telescope's mirror. Those adjustments are called adaptive optics.

Bride would go to Adaptive Optics conferences. Also there would be medical researchers -- AO, apparently, is also used (somehow) for eye surgery. These are the researchers studying the technology.

To hear Bride tell it: as of five years ago, the researchers all wore glasses.

18 Shakey's Bunch A Lunch buffet is an old High School past time. Would skip out for lunch with the rest of the baseball team and walk a block and a half to Shakey's. Two or three guys would purchase a buffet, ask for an extra plate each, while about ten to twelve other guys waited in the back room (usually empty party room). It was glorious for about a semester my sophomore year, until we were asked to never return. Darn busboy snitched us out. We gave it another go my senior year, figuring a turnover of most of the employees, although there was usually a watching eye which made things tense. The guys lucky enough to purchase the buffet spent less time eating and more time refilling plates. Loved those mojos!

35 Great, glad to hear it, back in my day, we just played Space Invaders, Asteroids and Carnival while one guy took turns eating.

Cajun is back from exile exulting in LSU's victory in the Allstate Compromise National Championship! I now consider myself a good luck charm and will imbue my aura on Chavez Ravine this year instead of concentrating my luck units on Death Valley.

31
Not sure a case can be made that Martin is better than a healthy Mauer, but I would take him over McCann any day.

the hendrickson thing reminds me of jose offerman. i recall them saying he was a bad fielder because he couldn't really see the ball until it was at his feet.

32
The same way Pistol Pete played basketball. None of us would know we have that heart problem until they do the autopsy?
Did anyone here ever watch Pistol Pete?

I think McCann is not included because they only do one against one in these chats but that doesn't mean the chatters can't bring in other names. Keith Law has hosted a few of them which is always fun since I learn where to eat in places I'm never going to visit.

39 I did, I wonder if today, there would have been more pressure on UCLA to recruit a player like Pete (though there was no way he was not going to be coached by his dad in college.)

Pete Maravich would have average 50 points a game (in college) if the 3-point line had been in used back then.

37 Speaking of good luck, my total last night for a last-minute supermarket trip = $19.88.

I haven't thought about Bunch o Lunch or mojos in a long time. We used to get a group of people from my work in Glendale to go to Shakeys and try to eat them out of business.

39
I'm only back for 10 minutes and already an indirect reference to LSU...

Watching Pete at LSU (or at least the highlight reels that I grew up on) was very similar to watching old college tapes of Jim Brown or David Robinson. Light years beyond their competition.

40
The hype and level of competition surrounding Pete in college was similar to what LeBron experienced in high school. Of course, Pete only had to play against white guys in the SEC...

Never a fan of the Bunch o Lunch. We used to go in Santa Monica for work lunch but basically it was a lot of lousy food. I'm sure if it was a HS stoned lunch I'd have a different opinion.

44
Not as though he didn't excel at the next level when he played everyone. I rarely watched college basketball then unless UCLA was playing so most of my memories are based on his pro career.

congrats on the peter g. shout out. excellent blog. i don't comment enough. time to teach me somes english.

43 I don't think David Robinson was light years ahead of competition though maybe he was given Navy's schedule.

No player has ever dominated college basketball like Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) did, especially during his first season. He probably could have averaged 40+ if he got the ball that many times.

Walton probably was a better defender, rebounder and passer but in college basketball there is Abdul-Jabbar and then a lot of guys in second place as the most dominant player ever in college hoops.

A friend's dad used to always complain that the older generation players were better than the newer ones. One day the talk turned to Abdul-Jabbar and he said "Yeah, Jabbar's good, but he's no Lew Alcindor"

44
True, but I do not think that he would put up the numbers he did for LSU if faced with a more integrated conference. His dad did go out of his way to ensure that the competition he played against out of conference was more even, though.

48
I just remember seeing highlights of him versus the other service academies and the other competition he played against. It was like watching an NBA center playing on a junior high team.

49 But in a way, he was right.

Okay, I am not one to publicize myself, but since I just typed this question to the chat and Tim K. answered it, here it is, and yes it was about those darn intangibles.

BH, Los Angeles: Tim, from where you sit, should Russell take on more of leadership role on the club and in the clubhouse since he has played with most of the younger players in the minors and as an All-Star, should have enough cred with the vets?

Tim Kurkjian: (1:22 PM ET ) I think he's shown some leadership skills already, but you're right, he'll need to show even more. Even though he's a young guy, there are certainly younger and less experienced guys on his team that he can help. There is a pretty good gap between some of the veterans on that team and some of the young guys as far as age and experience. It's always helpful when a younger guy who has been around for a few years steps forward. Martin is the logical guy to do that.

18
I love Shakey's but haven't been in years. I didn't do the buffet much...we would go after high school and play pop-a-shot basketball for a quarter per game. Shakey's would give away a pizza of varying size depending on how well we did at the game.

I could win a personal pizza pretty regularly, but a friend of mine was a pop-a-shot savant and would routinely win medium pizzas, even mixing in a few larges now and then. It was very cheap eats for us.

Also, on the Peter Gammons shout out, did "great writing" only apply to Bronx Banter or to Dodger Thoughts as well?

The lack of parenthetical notation after Dodger Thoughts was disturbing to me for some reason.

This doesn't have much to do with baseball, or anything else for that matter, but somehow I thought the DT readers might find it interesting, in an apocalyptic sort of way:

Last night, blowhard sports commentator Stephen A. Smith was a guest on Chris Matthews' Hardball offering his analysis on the South Carolina Democratic primary race. You read that correctly. There wasn't even a sports related theme from earlier in the show that Smith was initially interviewed for, he was on there solely for his insight into Presidential politics.

Are there any sort of credentials necessary these days to be a cable news political analysis? It seems to be a race to the bottom between sports analysts and political commentators. I'm not quite sure whose winning, but they are both spiraling quickly.

52
I like Tim framing Martin as the leader there. Martin is naturally inclined to that role in the same way Varitek, Jeter, and others are.

I always think of it this way. Which guy would you most miss if he was out for a long time with an injury? For me, that's Russ.

My latest "throw-it-out-there" name for a Ned trade/signing: David Aardsma.

He was DFA'd when Dotel signed.

45 So Donald is calling out Dunleavy (according to TJ), does Clipper Nation give Dunleavy a pass on this season?

Does anyone know if "bleeding blue" was originally associated with Dodger baseball or did it have other associations prior to "bleeding Dodger blue" (i.e. Bleed Cubbie Blue as a blog on Gammons list is titled). The reason I ask is my Xbox Live handle is ibleedbloo, and I get asked quite often if I am a Kentucky, Royals, Michigan, Blues, etc. fan.

I had always assumed it was solely a Dodger thing; are they stealing from us or are we stealing from them?

55

Gee .... perhaps they thought that Smith could best explain the African-American perspective on the whole Democratic primary scene?

Well, if Rush Limbaugh can be a (at one time) commentator on the ESPN's football coverage ...

Just an FYI but Russel Martin is my pick to be the MVP for 2008. I don't expect him to put up MVP numbers but the voters love the intangibles and when the Dodgers win the pennant he will get the votes.

I haven't done the catchers yet but the LA Dodgers might have the best catchers since 1958 of any franchise:
Roseborro, Haller, Duke Sims, Yeager, Ferguson, Scoscia, Piazza, Hundley, La Duca, and now Martin. Rarely have we been without an above average performer behind the plate in our 50 years.

59 Well here is one publication going back to 1977.

http://tinyurl.com/249kvh

My memory is that Dodger Blue or Blue associated with the Dodgers was in 1977.

Certainly those south of us would have us buy into Charger Blue and not being from the Kentucky, I cannot comment on their history with blue being associated with their team.

59
I thought Tommy created the bleed blue and I'm sure he stole it from some other franchise. It was not like the Brooklyn Dodgers wore blue.

58
I'm not a fan but he does get a pass for this year. Not much Don can do since he gave him a ridiculous contract. He has added some credibility to the franchise but he coaches a boring brand of basketball.

61 I did not look at any numbers but I don't believe Hundley (as a dodger) belongs on that list.

Jason Phillips probebly did more for the Dodgers than Hundley.

59 I've never heard the term Bleeding Blue being used with anything but the Dodgers. I'll add you as an Xbox Live friend though. My gamertag is "WETPETS."

22 or Ben Webber?http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/images/2006/01/11/uHwlQPnV.jpg

66
sorry, that's Weber with one "b".

65

I popped in my MLB2K7 game last night only to remember that I had traded Loney for Sabathia a while back. I was sad, but realized that the makers of the game love Nomar, so he is batting .318 with 30 homers. I am sad to say I go with the attributes assigned in any given year, not my heart. Of course, Jason Schmit is 6-10 right now and Chad is 13-2.

Oh, Wilson has 25 homers right now too.

Betemit, not Valdez

55
the race to the bottom has been over for a while now and we're living with--excuse me--reduced to having to wallow in--- the results.

0 i love these stories. last year i actually bought into the carl pavano fix-it procedure. one of his legs was longer than the other until they magically corrected the problem in the off-season. he started our season opener, and the rest was deja vu-- i mean, history. i was a fool.

but being able to see should help the big fella. this is hilarious.

68
I am playing the MLB franchise with Cleveland as my randomly selected team of choice.

Hafner is batting over .500 with a 1.100 SLG and a 1.650 OPS. I also traded Paul Byrd for Garret Atkins and Atkins has miraculously hit .800 in the 10 games since I got him.

My brother's brush with punditry:
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/012108/opinion_20080121034.shtml

This was also from the Kurkjian chat on Martin v. Mauer:

Someone in the Dodgers system told me that someday, Martin will be one of the best catchers of all time. I said 'Of all time?' and he said, 'Yes, of all time'

Pretty cool.

Has anyone here been invited, or going, to the "Pemium Power Lunch" with Ned on 1/23. My Firm got an invite which has trickled down to me and I'm trying to decide whther its worthwhile.

75 You should go, at least to lobby for better yogurt choices at Dodger Stadium.

This must be part of their plan of reaching out to the fans, or at least those with really good seats :), that Jamie McCourt mentioned at the end of last season.

Based on my season ticket status, I will get invited for a midnight snack with the groundskeeping crew.

More crazy video game stats:

I was playing NCAA 06 on the original xbox and beat Hofstra 83-7 with USC.

Reggie Bush: 23 carries, 520+ yards, 11 TDs. He also ran back a punt for a TD.

"It was nice because, for a moment, I thought I lost it..."

Um, lost what exactly, Brett?

64
In 2000 Todd Hundly had the highest OPS+ for a LA Dodger catcher not named Mike Piazza in history. Granted he only had 299 plate appearances but for one one year he earned his spot to be on the list.

75
I went to a lunch at DS around this time in 2005 but it had the whole management team. It was fun until Jim Tracy took the podium and spent 15 minutes answering one question by saying the same thing over and over untilI literally wanted to rush the podium and throw him from the stadium club. I could not have managed it myself but I think by that point I would have had help from Tommy, Frank, Paul and every single person in attendance.
It was the 1st time I ever heard Tommy in person and he was great. It is to bad the public Tommy does not compare to the private Tommy.

76. "Based on my season ticket status, I will get invited for a midnight snack with the groundskeeping crew."

Probably more fun and you'd find out what really goes on out there.

41 A few weeks ago, I went to Taco Bell and my order turned out to be $7.77, which I obviously proclaimed to be a sign of good will from the Gods. Then I realized that I had forgotten to buy my wife's drink.

I immediately filed for divorce.

81
I have a friend that has been on the groundscrew for the past ten years, and he gives me the skinny every year on the new guys that make the club. My favorite was when I asked him about Kent:

"He might be the crankiest guy I have ever met. He's never in a good mood. Really good tipper, though for the clubhouse guys."

83 Which in the end, I am sure, is all that matters to the clubhouse guys.

Maybe they should have chat with those guys instead of Ned.

82 You should bought her something that got the total to $8.88

79 I guess its a "how soon we forget" moment. Perhaps one day someone will mention that Mark Hendrickson had a 1.30 ERA through the first 6 weeks of 2007 and the memories will come rushing back…then it will be over, just like me thinking about Hundley.

I RSVPed yes. I will report back. (I'll be annoyed if its the equivalant of a time share presentation, i.e. a free lunch so we can upsell you on Dugout and Baseline seats.)

I have no problem with cranky and a good tipper. It just cranky and a bad tipper that is not kosher.